The reason literature, film, and music exist is that we need to create the form of the perfect victim—the most innocent person, the most heartbreaking story. We build them with care and precision, sculpting their fragility until it gleams. And under certain circumstances, we make them sound so real that they seem to speak for the millions who are not seen as perfect.
These perfect victims often bear recognizable marks: beauty, purity, perseverance, or the quiet grace of endurance. They are the ones the world is willing to mourn. Through them, art performs an ethical trick—it gives voice to those who would otherwise remain voiceless, whose pain does not conform to what society deems moving or noble. By idealizing one figure, art breaks the silence for many; by presenting the exceptional, it hints at the invisible ordinary.